poetry, essays, photography, & drawings

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day Eighty-Eight)

Poem 1:
My Brother
Says he’s not like you guys
With our silly voices and accents.
He set us apart
As I never have
To say I’m not like you two girls.
He othered me,
That is you over there,
And me right here.
We’re not the same.

Poem 2:
I blocked his way
Instead of moving the chair
Or saying excuse me
He huffed and found some mad.
She had to ask him, what’s wrong.
Because he fumed instead of explaining.

Poem 3:
I don’t like confrontations
So I avoid the people
Or dodge quick
When I see them coming.
But this can feel worse
To the person on the other side
Who isn’t sure what they did wrong.
As they told me today.

Poem 4:
It’s cold out so we got ice cream.
If you remember how cold it can be
Everything else feels warmer
That’s her theory.
A remedy for the chill.

Poem 5:
I’m so nervous and fearful
That by staying in this house
For free, with family I should have already left,
I’ll pick up their meanness and bickering,
I tried so hard to leave behind.
I’ll become an angry person just to fit in.

Poem 6:
I felt like a block to a feather
And a cannon ball to a blue bead
Or concrete to a wisp.
I saw them run
And I sat on the bench.

Poem 7:
Nobody told me and I was too scared to ask.
I’ve done it twice now in the past two weeks
And I’m tired
Would so much rather check out
With a receipt that summarizes.

Poem 8:
I’ve lived someone’s lifetime
I have walked for as long as they’ve blinked
And I could smile for all the time they crawled.
Makes me a better human
To have more of my life meter filled.

Poem 9:
I found a box of prizes that were mine
A little blue slinky
One purple sequined mirror
A miniature piano from the dollar store
My hands remember these
From when they were smaller.

Poem 10:
Hold me please
I’m shivering
And having nightmares from the babies that died in my dreams yesterday
Tell me it’ll be all right
That smiling grin won’t do any harm
It won’t eat the cats in your imagination.
It was all yesterday.